Train strikes: Disruption to continue into the New Year

Train passengers across the UK are being warned to expect disruptions in the New Year as rail strikes continue.

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) at CrossCountry began a 24-hour strike on December 26 at 21:00 GMT.

And other TSSA members on Great Western Railway and West Midlands Trains will disembark on Wednesday and Thursday.

Network Rail RMT union members will resume strikes over pay and conditions on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th January.

Their last strike ended at 0600 GMT on Tuesday – but the delays continued into the afternoon when services resumed operations. The late handover of the engineering works also caused some disruption, including at Paddington.

Network Rail said the “industrial action means there will be significant disruption to rail services in December and January”.

The TSSA strikes are part of a long-running campaign for a guarantee of no redundancies, no inconsistent changes in working conditions and a wage increase that counteracts the rising cost of living.

Members of Great Western Railway are on strike from Wednesday noon to Thursday 11:59 GMT and of West Midlands Trains from Wednesday noon to Thursday noon.

The strikes involve employees working in customer service management, driver management, training, control, customer communications, safety, scheduling and planning.

The union said it believes these strikes will severely affect services at CrossCountry, which stretches from Penzance to Aberdeen, through the Midlands, Wales and northern England to Scottish towns.

According to CrossCountry, there are no services north of York. It also warned that trains running north from Banbury and services from Reading to Manchester would be “extremely busy”.

In addition to the delays for travellers, 1,000 Border Force passport control staff at Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Gatwick, Heathrow (Terminals 2, 3, 4 and 5) and Manchester airports went on strike on December 26 and will be on strike again from Wednesday until Saturday.

TSSA Organizing Director Nadine Rae said members didn’t want to go on strike, “but are tired of being taken for granted”.

The Department for Transport had urged unions to “resign, reconsider and get back to the table so we can start 2023 by ending this damaging dispute”.

A Network Rail spokesman said: “Passengers should really do their research before travelling, lest they just show up at a station not to have trains there.”

Tell us how the strike action has affected you. Share your experiences via email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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